


The Disappearance of Jane Foster

by Nemhaine42



Category: The Avengers (2012), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Because of Reasons, Gen, I haven't actually decided, MUAHAHAHAHA, Maybe neither, Post-Apocalypse, beardy!steve, is this Darcy/Loki?, or is this Darcy/Steve?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-28
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2017-12-21 16:47:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/902583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemhaine42/pseuds/Nemhaine42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-apocalypse AU fic spawned from the desire to draw Kickass!Darcy. WIP. The Earth's surface is uninhabitable and life exists in stringently controlled underground cities.  The Avengers et al are scattered to the four winds, yet attempts to repair world persist at the hands of the few.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_“Where is Jane Foster?”_

 

Her head was pounding from the dehydration and her wrists ached being tied behind her. The room was stifling and her thoughts wavered with the warmth. Despite this, she heard and fully understood the question. She said nothing. 

 

_“You will tell us the whereabouts of Jane Foster, in exchange for leniency.”_

 

She peeled her eyes open, though found the room dark and her captors’ voices disembodied, likely being piped in through an audio feed. No doubt watching her from a considerably more comfortable location.

 

Leniency was laughable. She had spent the previous four months hiding in the shady backwaters on periphery of the city, hacking into power and broadcast stations to interrupt daily life and generally being a pain in the population’s collective ass. It had been a thrilling, if somewhat smelly and unwashed, existence cut short by her hosts’ fear and desire for money, which was hardly surprising. She had half-hoped to make contact with the other pockets of quietly fizzling resistance but never got closer than whispers in back rooms of bars and never met anyone who wasn’t just the ‘guy who knows a guy who knows’. Eventually the ‘guy who knew a guy who knew’ turned out to not know anyone at all except the local SHIELD Monitor and she was cuffed and incarcerated, though she felt mildly pleased not to have been taken without dishing out a couple of broken noses and an electrocution. All she’d been asked since her capture was her name, age and whether or not she would tell them about Jane Foster.  To which she’d responded with lofty silence seeing as they were fully aware of her name and age. And the less they knew about Jane Foster, the better. 

 

So, quite frankly, they could take their leniency and shove it. 

 

_“By choosing to remain silent and presenting neither defense nor evidence to the contrary, the accused is complicit in the disappearances of Jane Foster and Erik Selvig as well as guilty of conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism.  It is therefore the Council’s decision that, in the public’s best interest, Darcy Abigail Lewis should be sentenced to banishment to the surface.”_

 

Officers, different ones than had brought her in, took her by the arms and, hauling her to her feet, guided her back out into maze of tunnels that ran through SHIELD headquarters. The strong light out in the hallways stung her eyes and meant she could see no more than back in the interrogation room but followed the agents’ lead. 

 

Hers was a death sentence, she knew that much. No-one lived on the surface anymore. No-one could. The heat and dust and lack of food or water would kill her sooner or later. ‘Banishing’ someone was just a way of having the death penalty without having the death penalty. Maybe Thor would take pity on her and swoop down with his Rainbow Bridge, despite assurances that Asgard wished to remain entirely removed from Earth until such time as there was unity and clarity. Not this huddling underground in ant farms, with their every waking moment recorded and scrutinized. Not her disrupting TV broadcasts with grainy videos shot on her old phone, sounding off about the misinformation and misdirection of the population by its own government. Darcy had taken to heart Thor’s words and made it her mission to try and bring about an environment with which Asgard would be willing to ally. In one city, if not anywhere else. But she had, rather blatantly, failed. 

 

She had, of course, heard the stories that good ol’ Captain America, though banished himself (for dereliction of duty and insubordination), was alive and kicking up top. Stories that he was the one responsible for the plumbing problems the city endured; ripping up pipes and sticking them back where they didn’t belong, causing one district to be without water and another to be flooded. Darcy never heard anything beyond the urban legends and so doubted her chances of finding Steve Rogers waiting for her on the surface with a canteen of iffy water and an itchy blanket. 

 

No matter. If she died, she died. There were others. The Indian government was still refusing to allow US SHIELD agents through their locked down borders to search for Dr Banner, at least passively supporting his dissidence. Stark Industries’ environmental and biological research in Afghanistan was decreasing that population’s dependency on their support cities. Their section of surface lands might soon be hospitable again. So, really, Darcy perishing in the wastelands of America would only rid SHIELD of a petty criminal. 

 

Her escorts uncuffed her and she found herself in what appeared to be a cylindrical metal elevator.  She rubbed her wrists, knowing there were now two guns pointing at the back of her head. The doors to the elevator slid shut and they trundled upwards. She hadn’t been to the surface since the mandatory evacuation order was given and she wondered if there’d be anything recognizable left. She wondered how long it would take for her to succumb to the elements. Weeks? Days? Hours? There was never any information about the climate topside anymore and Darcy had a rather disturbing image of being turfed out of the elevator into a pile of corpses only to die herself seconds later. But she hoped that would not be the case. She hoped she’d be able to find shelter, some water, and be able to try and cause a little more damage to infrastructure from the other side for a little bit longer. Such things that were defined these days as ‘acts of terrorism’. 

 

She was instructed to hold her hands above her head and felt something being strapped to her leg. Glancing down, she saw her confiscated taser in its holster had been returned to her. She supposed that being banished meant she was essentially free  in exclusion, even if that would kill her. It was an illusion of liberty - the right to bear arms - no matter that she’d have no need of it where she was going. She thought, briefly, if anyone would miss her, would mourn her. Would they even know she was gone? Or would SHIELD bury her capture so that no-one ever heard her name again?

 

The elevator ride shuddered to a halt and Darcy could hear swirling winds against the doors, though they sounded simply unpleasant rather than straight up lethal.  Two masks, similar to the ones found on airplanes, descended from the ceiling for her guards’ benefit and a staticky voice fizzed out over a radio. 

 

_“Darcy Abigail Lewis, you have been tried and found guilty of conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism and, as a result, you have been sentenced to 10 years’ banishment above ground. You no longer have the right to residency in SHIELD’s New York Support City. You are hereby dismissed.”_

 

She made no effort to hide the rolling of her eyes as the voice stopped and white noise was fed through the speakers. The agents escorting her, wearing their masks, stood as far back in the elevator as they could with their guns still aimed firmly at her head. The doors parted to reveal the stricken landscape that was once New York: a dusty jumble of crumbling skyscrapers and abandoned cars. She considered what might happen if she simply refused to move but, as one guard took a tentative half-step forward, she realized that she’d probably just be shot instead. So Darcy left the elevator, left the city, left civilization. She heard the door close again behind her and the juddering noise that meant her guards were now on their way back down and she was completely alone. She dropped her hands and sighed, hearing nothing but the whistling winds against the skeletons of buildings around her.


	2. Chapter 2

Darcy’s first few days above ground were decidedly more pleasant than expected. She slept in the first apartment building that looked like it wouldn’t collapse in the night, and broke into nearby cafés and restaurants to scavenge something to eat.  Stale crackers, honey, a can of tuna that smelled awful. But she ate none of that because there were chocolate bars. Whoa Nelly, were there chocolate bars! Such an amount of candy in general that she felt far too upbeat and awake for someone condemned to solitude in a ruined city.  She looted clothing and shoe stores for an appropriate change of wardrobe, though she noted dully that she was not the first opportunist to visit many of these places.  Perhaps someone in the last days of surface living had decided to help themselves. 

 

She thought about Jane. Where she was, whether the plans they’d formulated half-drunk on a rooftop in New Mexico would ever be reality. They’d dreamed and fantasized about re-opening the connection to the Bifrost; about having an open dialogue with Asgard, sharing knowledge and technology. SHIELD had only really been interested in using such a connection as an early warning system for Earth’s defense, which hadn’t gone down well on Asgard to say the least. The result was the refusal of aid from Odin, the refusal to share the knowledge of how to open a wormhole from Jane. It made Jane Foster a fugitive, wanted for ‘holding the world to ransom’. Those even vaguely connected to Jane, even if they had no real information on her whereabouts, quickly went into hiding. Darcy wondered if SHIELD would have considered it anything other than a lie if she’d told them she genuinely did not know where Erik Selvig had gone. 

 

Her release site had been close to Central Park, though it took her a while to work out which end. About a week into her sentence, Darcy had managed to navigate what was left of the city’s grid plan to locate something familiar: Stark Tower, 200 Park Avenue. She’d been there only once before - when she and Jane first came to New York following the climate deterioration that forced them to leave New Mexico - but she felt it would be a more likely source of something useful. Contact information for Tony Stark that was still untapped by SHIELD? The eternally suave JARVIS? An Iron Man suit? She just hoped that the arc reactor powering the building still had enough juice to run the elevators and she wouldn’t have to face the stairs. She noted the remaining ‘A’ that had survived the Chitauri Invasion was still there, glowing brightly through the brown haze in the sky. But she also noticed movement on the balcony that overlooked the city. She froze on the spot: a lone figure strolled along the protruding ledge, as if simply waiting for an appointment to arrive. She had thought herself the only possible resident of the towering ruins and she couldn’t make up her mind whether to be overjoyed (company! Help!) or petrified (assassins? SHIELD agents?).

 

Hoping that whoever it was hadn’t seen her from all the way up there, Darcy climbed through the shattered glass doors and wended her way to an elevator, trying to be as subtle as she could. She tapped the ‘up’ button on the elevator panel, which was lit up and running perfectly. There was none of the shuddering that most of these things made with all the dust that got in them; the doors glided open and shut smoothly as if new. Certainly, nothing else in the reception hall had looked like it would work and it put Darcy’s hackles up. 

 

The ‘ding’ of the re-opening door seemed absurd with the image of Darcy creeping her way into the tower’s penthouse, taser forward. The lights were certainly on but, so far, no-one was home. The figure from the balcony was no longer there but she doubted she’d imagined it. The winds were much stronger this high up, the broken windows blocking none of the sound, so she couldn’t make out if there were any other noises beyond the soft humming of the suspicious electrics. No movement, no nothing. 

 

She took a couple of careful steps into the room, feeling more and more ridiculous at her caution. She lowered her taser fractionally.

 

“Would you care for a dr-”

 

“WHOAAAAA!!”, cried Darcy as a soft, masculine voice spoke straight into her ear. Its proximity caused her to jump, slip on the dusty floor, and fall gracelessly down the shallow stairs into what used to be a couch. She hissed as she felt something tear into her arm just above the elbow. 

 

“-ink?” 

 

She flailed to right herself, or at least face upwards again, and find the source of the voice. She was under the gaze of someone very familiar indeed, though this was their first meeting. Above her stood Loki, God of Mischief, wearing gleaming golden armour and an expression of suppressed mirth. With her boots still sliding on the floor, she scooted backwards underneath the upturned remains of sofa and pointed her taser in front of her again. She coughed with all the churned up dust, and her hands shook with panic as she watched booted feet step down towards her. Loki bent at the waist, his face now visible from under the couch, and he carried on as if she had not just flopped down the stairs and scurried for cover. 

 

“You must be Miss Lewis?” he asked, his voice riddled with condescending amusement.

 

“Hhhuh,” was her high-pitched response. Loki knew her name? 

 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said and walked over to the debris-strewn remnants of a bar by the opposite wall. Darcy gingerly poked her head out from under the couch to watch him. “You know, you really should have let me rule you when you had the chance. None of this unfortunate business might have come about. I was once offered a sample of Stark’s finest _hospitality._ Shall we impose upon him in his absence?” 

 

By hospitality, he clearly meant alcohol as he held up a large glass decanter and waved it in her direction. Though she had little inclination to plied with drink, she hadn’t found much more than a few cans of soda in her week here and was feeling very thirsty. She supposed if he wanted to attack or kidnap her, he’d have been able to do it without even revealing his presence. She crawled out from her hiding spot and re-holstered the taser. Approaching the bar, she felt blood trickling down her arm where it had been torn but kept her sights on the hands pouring out a glass of scotch for her. This was all incredibly strange. Though she suspected she knew how Loki had come to recognize her, she could not figure out why in the world he’d want to introduce himself let alone stand around having drinks. Her lack of acceptance did not go unnoticed. He wafted his hand over her glass and it instantly became full of clear, inviting water. 

 

“Too early, perhaps.” he conceded though he smoothly drank the whisky himself, “You may well wonder, Miss Lewis, why it is I am here. I have been beseeched! By the Mighty Thor to descend to Midgard and assist Lady Darcy in her exile.”

 

She wasn’t sure she believed that. Why couldn’t Thor have come himself? Why send in his stead a brother with whom he was not on best terms and who, she was fairly certain, was meant to be imprisoned on Asgard. Nonetheless, she took the glass of water and relished the iciness of it. Nothing could ever be this cold on the surface anymore; Loki was using magic to chill it.  

 

“I have a plan that can help you achieve your goals. I can see to it that the Earth’s stature is returned. I simply require an assistant.” he continued. She spluttered and choked on her drink at such a preposterous suggestion. 

 

“What?” Darcy laughed, the dubiousness finally getting to her. Loki did not seem put off by her disbelief. In fact, he looked like he’d been expecting it. “I thought Odin had forbidden anybody from helping us out. Apparently we lack autonomy and cling to figure-heads, though I guess you’d like that. And nobody gets to use the Rainbow Bridge. Don’t they know you’re here? How did you even get here?” she queried as she eyed him suspiciously, her panic mostly forgotten. He grinned at her and refilled her water. 

 

“Odin and Frigga know exactly where I am,” he said cryptically, “or they think they do, which amounts to the same thing. And the Bifrost is not the only path between our realms, though I don’t expect one such as you to understand. Accept my proposition and I shall be on hand, should you need me, to ensure your safety and the success of our endeavour to extract Earth from the hands of SHIELD.”

 

This was the fishiest thing since that can of tuna, and his superior attitude stank, but Darcy supposed her options were few. The only other path that seemed available to her was to sit on her ass in the ruins of New York City, run out of food and die, or be squashed under a crumbling building and die. Having the God of Mischief swear he had her back - no fingers crossed or anything - sounded, maybe, not terrible. 

 

“Before I agree to anything, what exactly does your plan involve?” she asked, relaxing a little on her bar stool. Loki smiled again and flicked his fingers, producing a platter of fruits. Such things were impossible to come by in a deserted city so Darcy wasted no time in tucking in, creating a hamster-effect in her cheeks. 

 

“I will grant you a gift,” he spoke in her ear again. She spun around to face him reclining against the bar beside her, where seconds before he had been directly opposite her, “One which you will guard with your life.  You shall not let it fall into the hands of any other until it reaches its destination.” He held out his palm and there appeared a small blue box, the lights in the penthouse vanished and the eery, pulsating light from the box lit up his features. He anticipated her train of thought and cut it off, “This is not the Tesseract, though its mannerisms are similar. This is something of my own creation and it will act as both a power source and method of communication. You will transport this cube to the one called Tony Stark. He will use it to expand his current technology so that it will do for the whole world what it has already done for his little corner of desert. When the world is healed, and you have enlightened the masses, Midgard and Asgard will be able to resume their alliance. Then you shall return the cube to me.” he finished his speech with a slight bow of his head in her direction, which made her feel slightly ridiculous about still stuffing her face with strawberries.

 

“Awesome,” Darcy said, swallowing, “but I have a couple questions. One: how the hell am I supposed to get this doohickey all the way to Afghanistan by myself? Two: what am I going to tell Stark about how I got this? And three: what do you get out of all this?” 

 

With a gesture, the cube became attached to a chain, like that of a pendant, which Loki dangled off this long fingers in front of her face. 

 

“I have Thor’s word that I shall receive sufficient recompense, the specifics of which do not concern you.  I am certain you’ll convince Stark of the cube’s... legitimacy. As for your journey - ” he held out the chain, wishing her to take it from him before he answered her question. She loosely wrapped her fingers around the cube, finding it cold to the touch and almost weightless, “- I believe you will find abettance south of here; cross the stone-arched bridge and you’ll find your soldier.” 

 

“Stone-arched bridge? You mean the Brooklyn Bridge? What kind of soldier am I looking for in Broo-OH MY GOD! CAPTAIN AMERICA!?” she shrieked, making Loki grimace, and she spun around to look out the window facing across the East River, “You mean Steve Rogers is actually up here, like alive?! Holy shit, I look like crap! Can you magic me up some Victory Rolls? Oh.”

 

She’d turned back to find the God of Mischief totally absent. The fruit platter she had been annihilating was still there, as was the cube still perched between her fingers. But no Loki. He’d taken her enthusiasm to meet Captain America as an affirmative and skedaddled.  Okay, so she went a little over the top with the squealing. But now he was just being plain rude.  Swiveling around and hopping off the bar stool, she spoke to the cube as she walked back over to the, now dim and dead-looking, elevator. 

 

“You know, I never actually said yes to this scheme of yours,” she said. The elevator buttons were unresponsive, so she pouted and waved the cube at them. Nada. Although she had little to no clue as to how the device worked, she’d definitely heard Loki say it could be used to talk to him. 

 

“Okay, fine. Yes. Yes, I will go with your plan. Consider me on board.” she huffed. The elevator instantly lit back up and hummed the gentle hum of functioning electricity.

 

Darcy stepped inside and muttered as the doors closed, “What a dick.”

 

The elevator took off at speed back down the tower like a rollercoaster, and she let out an ear-splitting scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A thousand thanks to my beta, readbycandlelight, for helping me get this chapter out. O3O


	3. Chapter 3

After her stomach-churning trip down Stark Tower, and the consequent staggering out the front door, Darcy found herself once again alone in the dusty, rubbled street. The God of Mischief was nowhere to be found as she resumed eking out a path through the crumbling city towards the Brooklyn Bridge. He hadn’t given her a deadline or timescale of any sort, so she felt secure in taking her sweet time. 

 

She still could not figure out Loki’s motives. This plan of his was crazy. He had tried to rule this world, to force it under his will. Why would he want to help free it from its self-imposed tyranny? She couldn’t deny the gnawing doubt that it was all a vast trick, that Thor was not involved in the slightest, and that ending up dead as a result of trusting his maniac brother would be the least of her problems; that this miniature cube wouldn’t help Earth but only empower Loki to whatever ends he wanted. But then why give it to her? He’d said he’d needed an assistant, what would she have to do that Loki couldn’t manage himself? 

 

It was a curiously comforting object, this little box hanging around her neck. She felt compelled to caress it every so often, to feel the swirling, pulsing energy contained within. It weighed so little and gave her the sensation of being lighter too. Like the winds blew through her, not pushing her this way and that. 

 

It took Darcy a good two hours to traverse the ruins and find her bridge, one of the few which had not totally succumbed to decay and one which no longer lived up to the memories. The arches had half disintegrated in the harsh environment and the rest was consumed by rust. The creaking and groaning noises it made in the wind sent Darcy’s heart to her throat.  She would have to cross this sagging waste of steel and concrete and the thought alone made her sick. 

 

A shaky breath and an anxious grip on the cube had her striding out onto the road that would take her to Brooklyn. She aimed to keep her line of sight fixed firmly on the horizon but found it wavered towards the great holes in the metal grating that surrounded the road over the bridge, ones that spoke of cars that had sailed over the edge and down into the East River. The rasping of old, weak metal only worsened as she neared the half way point and Darcy’s stomach quivered at the sight of a gaping span of water beneath her: the road had long since collapsed, leaving the two halves of the bridge connected only by the cross-hatched wall of girders to her left.  The odd way in which the breeze had brushed against her was suddenly replaced by what seemed like gales trying to push her into the dark, heaving river below. 

 

Steeling herself, Darcy reached out to take her first panicky grasp of the remaining metal frame that she’d have to climb across. Her muscles were as if made from jelly as she hauled herself up and away from the remaining safety of the walkway. There was a slight bounce to the beam underfoot and she clung harder to the frame. 

 

“‘Ensure my safety’, my ass”, she muttered, “Loki, you basta- 

 

Her curse was interrupted as another part of the bridge came away and plummeted into the river. Her hair whipped her face as she gazed down at the muddy, restless water. There were shapes and shadows beneath the surface that she would much rather not know about and, forcing breath through her nose, she brought her eyes back up to her destination. The rest of the mouldering concrete was only a few more feet away, yet remained a broad chasm to Darcy’s petrified body.  It reminded her of being five and falling from the monkey bars in the park, but this would mean more than tears and a broken wrist if she failed to climb across. 

 

Almost of its own accord, her arm, still feeling like it could barely hold itself up, stretched out and grabbed the nearest beam. Her foot followed, swinging over to find the next foothold, with the strange airy sensation returning and every movement feeling not her own. With speed and coordination she did not normally possess, Darcy scrambled over the frame and leapt onto the other side of the bridge. She sank to her knees with a thud and small squeak, eyes wide and breathing heavily. 

 

‘A scant few hours and already you need my help?’  Loki’s condescending voice echoed around inside her head. 

 

“So why pick me then?” she spat, knowing the answer.

 

‘Because, my darling Darcy, you are once again the sole applicant.’

 

‘Steve’s up here,’ she thought bitterly as she pushed herself upright. But she did not respond, sure in the knowledge that Captain America wouldn’t be so naïve as to go in on any sort of scheme with would-be ruler of Earth. Loki ignored the chance to rub in her amateurishness, so she let out a long sigh and marched hurriedly off the bridge. Brooklyn had fared no better that Manhattan she noted as the bridge petered out into Downtown Brooklyn. But in the expansive silence Darcy heard a knocking sound, far off in the distance. Her only clue as to where Captain Rogers might be was the fact that there had been an entrance to the Support City in Prospect Park; that was as good a place to start as any. She got herself onto what was left of Flatbush Avenue and began following the road down. 

 

Before her little ‘business meeting’, late afternoon had forced her indoors to avoid the worst of the heat but now the discomfort was distinctly toned down. Her skin wasn’t burning and she was only lightly sweating - no doubt it was more of Loki’s trickery but she wasn’t going to complain. She focused on the erratic whacking noise, which drew ever closer, absent-mindedly fiddling with the cube. 

 

Assuming it was Captain Rogers making the racket, what in the world was she going to say to him? Outright lying felt a teensy bit like treason. But then he wasn’t exactly going to leap on board if she mentioned Loki. She supposed the omission of certain things might have to happen. And Loki had told her it was Thor’s imploring that had involved him in the first place. Rogers couldn’t really have cause to doubt Thor’s word. And she dearly hoped that’s what it was. 

 

She was seriously ready for a break by the time she reached the park. Her insurgency had helped her lead a more active lifestyle than her internship but more than seven miles in a hot, debris-strewn city was far from comfortable. Prospect Park itself at least made for a change; the neglected concrete of the city faded into sandy soil and mummified trees interspersed among the dry shrubby grass. The noises she’d been chasing were beginning to sound a lot like someone was playing baseball, of all things. It was the distinct crack of a baseball hitting a bat with considerable force. So Darcy stayed on course, following her ears further into the park and, sure enough, she saw small white balls soaring overhead lit up by the encroaching sunset. They were accompanied by a new sound, the source of which she confirmed as she came into view of the playing fields: Steve Rogers commentating, narrating his own one-man World Series. 

 

Having yet to figure out just what to say to the man, Darcy hid behind a dead tree to watch him with a smile tugging insistently at her lips. The Captain seemed not to notice he now had a spectator as he ran the bases and cheered himself on. He looked much as one might expect for a guy trapped in a desolate wasteland for a while; his hair much longer and untidier, and his beard that of a man who’d stopped bothering quite some time ago. 

 

Rogers slid dramatically into home plate and held his arms aloft in triumph, causing Darcy to chuckle. It did not go unheard as Rogers’ face dropped and he pivoted on one knee, grabbing a gun from its holster on his leg and firing. Darcy ducked, with a shower of sawdust coating her hair. She stayed frozen, curled up as small as possible behind her half-vaporised hiding place. What kind of day was this, that the irascible Loki treated her to drinks and Captain America wanted to shoot her?

 

“SHOW YOURSELF!” he roared, “COME ON OUTTA THERE. HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE ‘EM.”

 

Darcy uncoiled and timidly poked her fingers around the tree, followed by her best ‘deer in the headlights’ expression. She saw the Captain’s gun lower a little but moved no further. Perhaps he’d been expecting a SHIELD agent, but certainly not  the panic-stricken young woman peering out at him. 

 

“Who are you?” he asked, still suspicious after such a long time alone. 

 

After several gulps of air, she found her voice, “I’m Darcy. Darcy Lewis. I… I worked with Jane Foster before evac. I’m a friend of Thor. I really don’t wanna be shot.”

 

He visibly let out a breath and stood, re-holstering his gun.

 

“I’m Steve Rogers. It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.” he said, the aggressive military voice now absent. Darcy rose and stepped out from behind her tree, looking relieved to finally have some relatively normal company. She slowly walked down the short, scrubby hill towards him but jolted to a stop when his eyes darted to her chest and the softly glowing cube. His face became panicked and he reached for his weapon once again. 

 

“What the hell is that thing?!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let it be known that I have been to New York City only once. And my exposure to Brooklyn was what little the attractive man on the tour bus could tell me. I never laid eyes upon Prospect Park. Google Maps is my friend.

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly don't know if I'll continue this but there are half-baked ideas in the sponge-bag that constitutes my brain.


End file.
